Our commitment to philosophy and writing, and the women who shaped them

Why philosophy and writing

Robotutor is built on a simple test: a learner has understood something when they can explain it, defend it and repair it when it is wrong. Philosophy and writing are the disciplines that practise that test directly. An essay is an argument a reader can check, and a philosophical dialogue is a sequence of claims, objections and replies.

Our tutoring method is designed to examine how a learner reached an answer, not only whether it is right. Extending it to philosophy and writing is a natural next step, and we expect the work to inform how we teach other subjects.

Why women philosophers and writers belong at the centre

Some of the most forceful arguments for women's education were written by women shut out of the universities of their time. Mary Astell's A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694, 1697) proposed a place of study for women. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz defended a woman's right to learn in her 1691 reply to the Bishop of Puebla. Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) argued that women are rational beings who deserve the same education as men.

The list reaches beyond arguments about education: Elisabeth of Bohemia, whose letters of 1643–1649 pressed Descartes on how mind and body interact, and later Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Iris Murdoch and bell hooks. A reading list that leaves them out teaches a narrower subject than the one that actually exists. We intend to include them as core reading that learners argue with, not as an optional supplement.

• Elisabeth of Bohemia: correspondence with Descartes on mind and body (1643–1649)
• Mary Astell: A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694, 1697)
• Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Reply to Sor Filotea (written 1691)
• Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
• Virginia Woolf: A Room of One's Own (1929)
• Simone de Beauvoir: The Second Sex (1949)
• Hannah Arendt: The Human Condition (1958)
• Iris Murdoch: The Sovereignty of Good (1970)
• bell hooks: Teaching to Transgress (1994)

What we plan to build

Our plan is for learners to read a short primary passage, state its central claim in their own words, raise the strongest objection they can find and write a reply. The tutor's role is to question that reasoning, point out gaps and ask for revision. It should never write the essay for the learner or treat a fluent paragraph as proof of understanding.

Public-domain texts, such as Astell and Wollstonecraft, will be available to read in full. Works still under copyright will be discussed, summarised and cited with brief quotation where the law permits, and learners will be pointed to legitimate editions. Each lesson will need independent review by a qualified person before publication, as our chemistry lessons do.

What this announcement does not promise

This post commits us to a direction. It does not offer a course, a release date or an assessed qualification. AI can misread an argument, misattribute a quotation or flatten a thinker's position, and philosophy is especially exposed to these errors. Any lesson we publish will name its sources, state its limitations and be checked by a qualified person.

If you teach philosophy or writing, or have a reading you think belongs on this list, contact support@precision-learning.org. We would rather build the list with readers than present it as finished.